Twin Cities Metropolitan Area Transit System

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About Twin Cities Metropolitan Area Transit System

For photos and videos of things relevant to the Twin Cities metropolitan area transit system. Acceptable photo subjects include transit buses, train cars, support vehicles, bus stop signs, train stations, shelters, garages, maintenance facilities, park-n-ride lots and transit stations, maps, schedules, and anything else that is a part of the transit system. Photos and/or video of historic vehicles that once operated in the Twin Cities are are also welcome.

About the system:

The Metropolitan Council is responsible for overseeing transit operations in the Twin Cities metro area. The Council directly operates Metro Transit, the area's largest transit provider. In addition there are Suburban Transit Providers which operate their own service within the Council's transit taxing district. Metropolitan Transportation Services oversees contracted route operations. Contracted routes are typically suburban commuter routes and some local routes that are too expensive for Metro Transit to operate.
Paratransit service is provided by Metro Mobility throughout the 7 county metropolitan area. A new service, known as Transit Link, is also available to the general public for areas not served by the fixed route system.

History:

Metro Transit was formed in 1967 by the Minnesota State Legislature. At that time it was known as the Metropolitan Transit Commission, or MTC. Later when the MN State Legislature formed the Metropolitan Council to handle the regions transit, wastewater, and future growth planning the MTC was renamed to Metropolitan Council transit Operations. Finally in 1998 the name Metro Transit was adopted.

In 1986 the MN State Legislature created a provision which allowed suburban communities to opt out of the main Metropolitan Council Transit Operations system. This provision came about because service cutbacks and limited suburb to suburb service meant that the suburban areas did not always have adequate coverage even though they contributed a fair amount of property taxes to fund the system. With the provision a suburban community could opt out of the regional service, collect their own property tax revenues and operate their own transit service. As a result of this several suburban communities are now served by opt-outs instead of Metro Transit.
The opt-out systems in the Twin Cities area are:
Blue Xpress
Maple Grove Transit
Minnesota Valley Transit Authority
Plymouth Metrolink
Southwest Transit
In addition to these suburban systems there are other opt-out communities that contract with Metro Transit to provide service.

Another fixed route operator in the metro area is the University of MN. Their Campus Shuttle service consists of 5 fixed routes to serve the St. Paul and Minneapolis East Bank and West Bank campuses. This service is overseen by the U's Parking and Transportation services division and operated by contractor First Transit.

For more information please visit the websites posted in the above information.

Note: this group is not affiliated with the Metropolitan Council, Metro Transit, or any of the regional operators.